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Local congressmen debate
7th District candidates visit campus, face
off on variety of controversial issues
By Andrea Yeutter
Collegian Reporter
A second debate featuring
candidates for the 7th District Congressional seat in the U.S.
House of Representatives was hosted April 6, by the Hillsdale
College Republicans, immediately followed by a straw poll.
Although former State Rep. Tim Walberg again
won the poll by a decisive majority (58 percent), there were
many factors distinguishing this debate from the last one, held
last semester.
Most notable was the participation of former
State Sen. Joe Schwarz, who entered the race in late December,
and the absence of earlier debate participants, State Reps.
Clark Bisbee and Gene DeRossett.
Schwarz's pro-choice stance on abortion stirred
controversy. Schwarz said he supports legal abortions in cases
of rape, incest and saving the life of the mother, and has voted
in favor of requiring parental consent for abortions and against
late-term and partial-birth abortions.
"Abortion should be legal, safe and very,
very rare," he said, citing his 43 years of experience
as a physician to support his assertion that "no fewer
women will seek to terminate pregnancies if we overturn Roe
v. Wade."
All other candidates on the platform opposed
his stance, and Schwarz later received only 5 percent of the
straw poll vote.
"I disagree with [Schwarz's] stance on
abortion," said former State Rep. Paul DeWeese, also a
physician. "I know the agony of women who have gotten a
back-alley abortion-this is a tremendous tragedy. The problem
I have is that by permitting abortion by using that argument,
we have opened the door since 1973 to 45 million babies being
aborted."
DeWeese, who finished second in the straw
poll with 23 percent of the vote, was criticized for voting
in favor of a bill that would grant illegal immigrants driver's
licenses, a decision he defended by pointing out that "many,
many farmers" approached him in favor of the bill, and
he believes it is in the interest of national security.
"The fact of reality is that our agricultural
industry relies on it," he said. "More importantly
is that by allowing people to have a driver's license, we know
who they are, what their address is, and our authorities are
able to track them in a way that they can't if they don't have
that document."
Walberg said he strongly disagreed with DeWeese's
stance on just one point: "They're illegal aliens,"
he said. "If they were legal aliens, no problem."
Walberg argued that issuing driver's licenses
to illegal residents would only encourage more to come, rather
than encouraging them to apply for legal citizenship.
"We're a land of freedom and opportunity,"
he said. "We shouldn't be promoting illegality-let's make
[immigrants] legal and then give them the privileges of being
legal in this country."
Those attending the debate did not find Walberg's
strict adherence to conservative fiscal policy to be a liability,
granting him an overwhelming majority of votes. However, Brad
Smith, who takes many of the same stances, was not so fortunate.
In the November debate, Smith came in a solid
second, but after this debate slipped to third with just 15
percent of the vote, despite increased publicity due to the
situation surrounding his father, U. S. Rep. Nick Smith, who
was present at the debate.
According to a wire release by the Associated
Press on Nov. 23, 2003, Nick told reporters that he had been
offered "substantial support" for his son's campaign
if he would vote for the Medicaid bill and alleged that there
had been threats made to support his son's opponents if he voted
against the bill.
Nick voted against the bill anyway and was
supported in his decision by his son.
"It's my philosophy that we can't simply
start huge new entitlement programs and simply borrow the money
to pay for it when our kids and grandkids are going to be stuck
with that kind of bill," he said.
Brad shares his father's views, asserting
that the amount of federal spending is the most important issue
in this campaign, along with judicial activism.
However, he has received some criticism, having
never previously run for or served in public office, compared
to his opponents who all have experience in the State legislature.
In his defense, Smith pointed to President
George W. Bush, who won governorship of Texas without any previous
experience and was then elected president.
"I think the Constitution was intended
to encompass people going to Washington with common sense, with
experiences from everyday life and the experience of working
for a living instead of being on the government payroll,"
he said. "[Legislators] are no more important or powerful
than the individuals whom we serve, and I come fresh from that
experience."
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